This year marks the 70-year anniversary of landmark federal legislation guaranteeing a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities. The landmark court case Brown vs. The Board of Education (1954) was a major step towards challenging inequity and segregated schools within public education. The case aimed to protect the civil rights of Black students and was later used as a stepping stone to protect the right to equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities.
The ruling of Brown, that separate is inherently unequal, set the foundation for the mobilization of parent disability advocates to challenge instances of discrimination for children with disabilities and the historical passing of the 1975 Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA 1975), now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004).
Before these federal laws, many students with disabilities were viewed by society as unable to benefit from a public education and encountered a variety of exclusionary school policies. In some cases, students had to attend segregated placements to special schools away from peers without disabilities. Given this history, IDEA emphasized that ALL children have the right to access a free and appropriate public education in their least restrictive environment (i.e., educated with children who are nondisabled to the maximum extent appropriate).
The enactment of IDEA to mandate services for students identified with specific categories of disabilities (i.e., developmental delay, intellectual disability, hearing impairment (including blindness), speech or language impairment, visual impairment, emotional behavioral disorder, orthopedic impairment, autism spectrum disorder, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment, specific learning disability, deafness, deaf-blindness and multiple disabilities) played a critical part in shaping the learner diversity and inclusion efforts we see within public school districts currently.
As our nation adopts more inclusive learning practices and notices large shares of students within specific disability categories (e.g. specific learning disability such as dyslexia) or upward trends in disability diagnosis (e.g. autism spectrum disorder) our Carlow special education teacher programs become a great choice for those wanting to enroll in a prep program that is innovative and attends to the current needs of the field.
Features of Carlow’s Special Education Teacher Prep Programs
- Field experiences in a range of PreK-12th grade settings providing special education services
- Structured literacy practices and recent neuroscience are used to prepare pre-service teachers about dyslexia with access to an on-campus dyslexia center
- Universal design for learning and culturally responsive-sustaining teaching frameworks and principles are applied and practiced preparing special education teachers to work in inclusive settings
- Courses focused specifically on autism spectrum disorder which can result in an autism spectrum endorsement
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 2021-2022 school year, approximately 15 percent of all students attending public schools received special education services. Ninety five percent of those students receiving special education services were enrolled in regular schools, with 67% spending 80% or more of their time in the general education classroom. Moreover, the share of students with disabilities in public-school settings has increased over time and is now higher than it has ever been since the IDEA mandate. This increase has been attributed by those in the field to more parent and family awareness, increased acceptance of services and reduced stigma, better recognition of characteristics of disability and even inadequate general education classroom resources and support resulting in the request for more intensive specialized service.
Milsha J. Reid, PhD is an assistant professor and program director for the Special Education program at Carlow University